roger was very good about this. >> i was reading today, the cinematographer did this and the actor did this. >> he could separate one's work from the other. >> and master of technique. thank you so much for being here for roger ebert. that is all for this evening. "the rachel maddow show" starts now. good evening, rachel. >> good evening, chris. i think the idea of patty cake with all the guests before you start. >> i will make a note now. >> that won't make sense tomorrow. in hartford, connecticut today, it happened. it was a long time coming and in the most important way, it was too late but it did finally happen today. >> this is a profoundly

emotional day, i think for everyone in this room and everyone watching what is transpiring today in the state of connecticut. we have come together in a way that relatively few places in our nation have demonstrated an ability to do. in some senses, i hope this is an example to the rest of the nation. certainly, to our leaders in washington, who seem so deeply divided about an issue such as universal background checks, where the country is not divided itself. when 92% of americans agree that every gun sale should be subject to a background check, there is no excuse for representatives or senators who don't come to the assistance of those they are elected to represent. >> connect governor dan malloy this afternoon signing into law

gun reforms for the state of connecticut restrictions on capacity magazines and assault weapons and the criminally ill having access to guns. background for all purchases and backgrounds for bullets. governor malloy you can see here is in green, the green tie and green ribbon on his lapel because green was the school spirit color for sandy hook elementary school that saw 20 of its first graders slaughtered using weaponry purchased legally before that massacre. that will not be legal for sale in connecticut once today's new law goes into effect. among the people looking over the governor's shoulder today and receiving the pens with which he signed the new law were parents of 6 and 7 year-olds who were killed at sandy hook. >> this is a path i never thought my life would take, but working to save the lives of others is one of the ways that i am honoring dillon's life. sandy hook promise has given

many of us a way to convey our views to our state's leaders with love and logic, and you have received us with love and respect, without partisanship. more important, you have listened. my son, jake, every child in connecticut, will be safer because of that. >> that is nicole hockley, whose son, dillon, was killed at sandy hook december 14th. another 6-year-old would have turned 7 today. today was her seventh birthday. on her birthday, her parents wrote an op-ed in "usa today" about their soulful cheerful daughter who loved to sing and about the need for gun reform. there was a moment of silence for anna green in the busiest place on earth in the middle of time square and the assembly woman who represents the legislature did not go to sign the bill today for the

legislature she supported so she could take part in this marking anna marquez's birthday today. this did get done today. connecticut could have done this alone but they chose instead to work with the minority republicans to come up with something to get bipartisan support even though it didn't have to happen that way. it did get bipartisan support and got overwhelming votes in the house and senate with republicans and democrats both voting for it not unanimously but substantially in both houses. today, it is not just connecticut but maryland where democratic governor martin o'malley's reforms passed in february an passed the house yesterday, the vote was straight-61. the package had to bounce back -- 78-61.

it had to bounce back and passed there tonight, and it's on its way back to the governor and we know he will sign it. it's a low threshold to submit a new law to the voters and give it a thumbs up or thumbs down. once the governor signs the law in maryland it will be put on hold a year so it can be voted on in the next election in november. in terms of that, all the policy in this bill is very popular. background check, assault weapons bans, limiting high capacity magazines, these are the measures that poll very loud among the public no matter how loud the threatening is from the minorities who disagree that don't want gun laws at all.

we will see how they stand up when they get to the referendum next november. the reform package that will end up on the ballot consists of popular stuff. this is the democratic process playing out. the governor makes a decision and the people can veto if they want to try for that. one legislator has decided to try a different route. the maryland gazette said while the maryland house was debating the gun bill, a republican state legislator named don dwyer was on his facebook page calling for maryland to form a militia. dear maryland patriots, i was certain the time would come when there was a need to organize the voluntary militia. that time has come. an hour later, representative dwyer posted another update. do not post on facebook your response to my call for the militia.

there's a typo there. i think he means this is a public forum and it is monitored. i do not want you raided. please be wise. e-mail me. do not post here. you have been warned. maryland republican state delegate don dwyer. he says he is not calling for an insurrections. there is this. today, he renamed the militia he's calling for to quote the voluntary militia is being renamed the constitutional defense force. this is for reasons i will disclose in the next e-mail update. seriously, this is a duly elected sworn member of the maryland assembly starting his own constitutional defense force so named for the reason he will not disclose in a public forum and any interest you express in a public forum might get you raided. you have been warned. this kind of thing happens in our country not just on the

issue of guns. last year after the supreme court ruled health reform was constitutional, you might remember the former spokesman for michigan sent and earthquake mail with activists on his side -- sent an e-mail. is armed rebellion justified? america itself was possible only after its people summon the will to risk their lives and their futures as well as those of their children for a freedom they did not enjoy but knew was their gift from god. good willing, this oppression will be lifted and america free again before the first shot is fired. holds a gun to your head, i'm saying at some point, when do we ask the question when do we turn

that gun around and say no and resist. just asking the question, right? just an ordinary guy asking the question when do we turn the guns on the government because we don't like that the supreme court said some new health insurance regulations were constitutional. there is a violent current that runs alongside our democratic process in this country. today, on the 45th anniversary of the assassination of martin luther king we think of this in particular. not only high profile assassinations like that. we know this current exists. we know it is there, know it is not a myth in our country, why it is unnerving when people like state legislatures and state party spokesmen show a willingness to dip into that current. a current of non-metaphorical actual violence people turn to physical force and intimidation, violence and threat and occasionally assassination to get their political way when they cannot get it through democratic means in america.

in wichita, kansas, the violent radical fringe of the anti-abortion movement could not stop dr. george tiller from offering women constitutionally protected abortion services in kansas, they could not stop him by democratic means and in 1986, they bombed his clinic. the next day after the bombing, dr. tiller moved his practice to a new and secret location and decided he would keep going. in 1993, a woman walked up to the same doctor tiller while sitting in his car in the parking lot and shot him in both of his arms. he survived that attack as well and returned to work the next day. our democratic process says the women have the right to the care he provided and he had the courage to keep going, keep providing it. the other side that could not get its way in the democratic constitutional process, they decided to get their way through violence instead. in 2009, an anti-abortion activist succeeded in what his colleagues had tried before and dr. george tiller was shot dead inside his church during sunday

services. because of that, dr. tiller's clinic, the only one in that part of the state closed. in the four years since the woman who used to work there raised money to buy the old building. julie burke heart bought it from his widow last year so she could open up a clinic on the same site with the same range of medical services including abortions. since the news got out, she tells the local press she has been stalked, a flyer with her name and address has been distributed in the neighborhood she lives. she had protesters outside her home. not long a pastor put a sign in her yard that read, where is your church? we all remember what happened in that other church to dr. tiller. the memory of violence and the threat of more violence have not faded in wichita. is there a trial under way right now for death threats for the

doctor that tried before julie burkhardt to start the practice. and a phone number found on a post-it note on a gunman's dashboard pulled over after killing george tiller. the activist posted the name and address of the doctor they believe will work at the clinic in wichita and growfully posted online her explaining over the phone for that information not to be circulated there. >> i had been hoping to keep my name off of the record record of crazy people with guns, if you know what i mean. >> with the news that the clinic is re-opening this week, anti-abortion activists have not only posted that online with all the details who that doctor is, also posted online tape of the man who murdered dr. tiller, making death threats from jail now against julie burkhardt by name. that killer recorded on the phone from his jail cell saying

things like, it's almost like putting a target on your back. it's almost like putting a target on your back to reopen that clinic. he said, it's a little bit death defying, you know, for somebody to walk back in there. that current of violence running alongside our democratic process, that current of violence makes that killer see the question as one of defying death, defying the rule of the gun which he has chosen to enforce. but honestly what is really being defied here is violence. violence as a means of getting your way in this country. we do not decide things in this country based on violence. you don't get your way through violence if you can't get it through the democratic process. we have people in this country who are brave enough to say, i will make sure we will not let violence win. joining us now is julie burkhardt, administrator of the brand new newly opened women's sent in wichita, kansas and joined by staffers at the women's center. good to have you here tonight. thanks for doing this.

i really appreciate it. >> thank you very much for having us on. >> first of all, i have to ask you how it's going this week? i understand you guys just opened yesterday. i imagine things are a little bit hectic. >> yes. we are working tirelessly here. we're very busy. we've been scheduling appointments and trying to put the finishing touches on the business. we're just very very excited at this time. >> you know, we have talked before and i followed your progress as the founding director of the trust women foundation and what you have i tried to do to reopen this clinic all along. the story of everything that you do happens in the shadow of these threats against you and about the circumstances under which dr. tiller was killed. i have to ask you overall how you feel the community is

responding to the opening of the clinic? is that the dominant force that you're dealing with or are you also getting support? >> we are getting support. from going to the post office, to the grocery store, to the bank. people in this community are coming forward and giving us their support. over the last few days, we've had a lot of phone calls into our office from people in the community. so overall, we have, i feel, vast community support. we just have those loud and noisy extremists people seem to hear from the most. >> have you learned anything that might be helpful to the rest of the country, in terms of how to deal with those loud and noisy extremists? obviously, i have mixed feelings about -- i have mixed feelings about conveying what it is that they are doing and saying because i don't want to be a megaphone for what they're

doing, at the same time, i don't want to ignore the dangerousness of what it is that they're doing. have you learned anything through this process what you feel like is the right way to deal with people trying to get their way by force? >> i think our approach has been solutions to the problems and that for every problem that they -- and obstacle that they put into our way, we take a good hard look at that and we know that there's a solution to that problem. we just keep, you know, running over those hurdles. sometimes it feels a little exhausting, but, you know, at the end of the day, we know that if we keep putting solutions to those problems they try to put before us, we will prevail. >> you obviously have a special kind of courage to do this, in the face of the environment that you're operating in.

not just the local community but the way that dr. tiller was singled out for so many years by the extremist elements in the anti-abortion movement and, of course, the way he died. in terms of other people wondering about political courage, are there things you think about taking this brave stand, things that would materially support what you're doing so more people can take brave stances in the threats of violence? >> well, i think that, you know -- this is a matter of principle. i'm from this part of the country, you know, some of my staff members you see here, they're from this part of the country. and, you know, this is a matter of principle and this is a matter of what is right. this is a matter of justice. all women in america deserve to have reproductive freedom. that is what we're here to do, is to do our small part to help

to forward reproductive freedom and justice for women. >> julie burkhart, administrator of the south wind women's sent and founder and director of the trust foundation. i want to thank you tonight being there particularly with all your staff for us and good luck in opening week. appreciate you being here. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. now that republicans have gained total legislative control in the state of north carolina, they are celebrating by proposing the nuttiest voter suppression scheme i have ever heard of. that's coming up next. later on this hour, getting rid of the scariest thing in the "world one" piece at a time. a true blue good news story. stay with us. [ washer and dryer sounds ] for the things you can't wash, freshen them with febreze. febreze eliminates odors and leaves a light, fresh scent. febreze, breathe happy. we don't let frequent heartburn come between us and what we love. so if you're one of them people who gets heartburn

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in 2008, the night before the presidential election, candidate barack obama decided to hold his final rally of the entire '08 campaign, his last campaign stop before election day in what state? north carolina. specifically charlotte, north carolina. senator obama addressed a screaming crowd of 25,000 people in charlotte that night. but where he was even more specifically than just being in charlotte is that he was at the university of north carolina at charlotte, because then candidate barack obama knew if he was going to win north carolina the next day, part of what he was going to do, part of what he was going to need in order to do it was the college vote. >> i know this, north carolina, the time for change has come.

we've got a righteous wind at our backs. if in these final hours you will knock on some doors with me, make some calls for me, if you will stand with me, if you'll fight by my side, if you'll cast your ballot for me, then i promise you this, we will not just win north carolina, we will win this general election, you and i together. >> the next day, barack obama did win new york by the slimmest of margins. he won the state by a little more than 14,000 votes. the thing that helped power him to victory there, the thing that was different in north carolina in '08 compared to the previous election was in fact the youth vote. the college kids turned out. in '08 youth vote in north carolina was up 10% from the previous election in 2004. that youth vote did not just help power barack obama to victory in that one state, it also gave that one state a democratic governor, bev purdue, who like the president won of

the slimmest margins. 2008 against the odds was a blue year in north carolina. in 2012 this past election cycle, republicans succeeded in taking it all back. the republicans won back the governor's mansion and now not only control both the house and senate, have big enough majorities in both houses to overturn any gubernatorial veto should there be one even though there probably won't be one because the governor is a republican, too. the republicans have a total lock in north carolina and can govern at will. what they have decided to do with that power thus far is something political scientists have a term for. the term is amaze balls. the whole youth vote thing that sent date of birth victory in 2008, republicans decided to put a stop to that. new york republicans introduced a bill in the state senate this week to curb the college vote in north carolina, to lower college turnout.

the way they've decided to go about doing this, as creative as it is stomach churning because the problem with trying to stop college kids from voting at the place they go to school is that you can't stop them from doing that. officially and specifically, you cannot stop students from doing that. the supreme court ruled in 1979 in no uncertain terms college kids have the right to register and to vote where they go to school. it's very clear constitutional law. to get around that very clear constitutional law, to get around the supreme court protecting students' rights, what north carolina republicans are trying to do is not block students' voting rights directly but rather they're going to require students' families to pay money, to experience a targeted tax hike if their college student chooses to exercise his or her right to vote. seriously. under this republican bill, if a college student in north

carolina registers to vote at their college address, instead of at their home address, their parents will get hit with a tax hike. a brand new tax hike from the state of north carolina. if you are a college kid in north carolina, a voter registration drive, you decide to register, the consequences are your family will be punished by having to pay more in taxes. how's that for encouraging voter participation. isn't tax hikes the one thing supposed to unite the republican party now? if this tax hike is just to make sure college kids won't vote, that's a tax hike we can get behind. this isn't just some lone wingnut senator sponsoring a go nowhere bill. indian the main sponsor there are four others who signedton this thing including one from the republican senate leadership. and besides the college students they're going for it in north carolina. democrats in north carolina use early voting way more than republicans do. now, republicans want to cut

early voting nearly in half, want to stop early voting all together on nights and weekends. republicans are proposing reducing the number of early voting locations in each county to one location. one location only per county. that should slow things down nicely. democrats in north carolina also use same day registration more than republicans do so republicans are proposing getting rid of that as well. republicans are in control right now in north carolina and they are really really going for it. earlier this year, another state made a similar try going after college students. republicans tried that earlier this year in the great state of indiana. that bill in indiana ultimately got pulled from consideration after it went through a thorough round of public shaming. so far, north carolina, though, maybe it just hasn't gotten enough attention but republicans appear thoroughly unashamed. they are charging full-speed ahead on this and have veto proof majorities with which to get it done. what's happening in north

carolina has not received a lot of national attention at least not yet. do yourself a favor, set a google news alert for north carolina republicans. they have completely unchecked power right now. their ideas how to use that power, as the political scientists say, rather amaze balls. we will have more on the unhinging of republican politics in north carolina on tomorrow's show. we'll be right back.

a on december 4th of last year, former senate majority leader bob dole paid a rare visit to capitol hill. former presidential candidate, former majority leader in the senate. himself a war hero, bob dole himself went to capitol hill in december to be an eyewitness to every senator's vote on the ratification on the u.n. convention on the rights of people with disabilities. senate ratification of this thing probably should have been a slam-dunk. it was expected to be when they started getting atrointd in the

first place. the treaty was modelled after our own americans with disability act. it was to take that advance we pioneered in this country in our own law and hold it up as an aspirational model for the rest of the world. since we already have the american with disabilities act in this country, this would be a feel good thing for us that would make a real difference around the world in terms of people with disabilities being treated with dignity. this was kind of a slam-dunk, you'd think. then the current crop of republicans occupying bob dole's old place in the senate decided this actually was a communist conspiracy to destroy parenting. they said it was a pandora's box, a un takeover of the basic unit of the family, a conspiracy for one world government! and lo and behold senate republicans junked the treaty.

so the world endorses the principles of our own law, our own americans with disabilities act and our republicans denounce that world endorsement as satanism or something. if you are wondering where this nonsense ends, i do not have an answer for you. i do know where the next stop is on this particular crazy train. that's coming up. all aboard. ♪ [ sneezes ] [ male announcer ] if you have yet to master the quiet sneeze... [ sneezes ] [ male announcer ] you may be an allergy muddler. try zyrtec®. it gives you powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin® because zyrtec® starts working at hour 1

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four years ago tomorrow, president obama delivered one of the big deal speeches in his presidency, prague. they got so upset how adoring the crowd was they almost forgot to get upset about the ambitions he laid out in the speech. >> today, i am announcing a new international effort to secure all vulnerable nuclear material around the world within four years. we will set new standards, expand our cooperation with russia, pursue new partnerships to lock down these sensitive materials. >> that was four years ago tomorrow, president obama said the united states would complete this mission by now, by 2013.

so how's that going? the goal again is to get all the vulnerable nuclear material around the world locked up by the end of this year, end of 2013. there's about nine months to go. toward that end we have something to report tonight. exclusively tonight we can report on this show the country where president obama gave that speech four years ago, the czech republic, that country is the latest nation on earth to have completely cleaned out or locked down all of its loose nuclear material. we can report tonight for the first time anywhere that secretly, in late march under an incredible amount of security, the united states national nuclear security administration packed up the last of the highly enriched uranium yet to be locked down in the czech republic. the last removal was 150 pounds of highly enriched uranium about enough material to make two nuclear weapons. on friday march 22nd, the nuclear material was packed up in trucks.

you can see the trucks here at an indoor facility they built in secret specifically for this operation to get the material out of the country. the international seals were placed on them. and the trucks carrying the casts of you rarium went to a train station where they sat under armed guard until 1:00 so under cover of darkness they could be headed to a train and shipyard. the material was taken from a shipyard and loaded on a ship and happy birthday, the highly enriched uranium was sent to russia and sent to a downgrading facility and turned into something bad guys could not turn into a bomb. this was the fifth and final removal from the czech republic. in total the united states cleared out four nuclear bombs worth of highly enriched uranium and plutonium. the czech republic is the fifth

country that cleared out the loose nuclear material. the last go is uzbekistan and hungary and iran. and the closest caches like mesko and chile, a big earthquake hit in the middle of the operation to move the nuclear material. oh, no. our government does this super secret spy work to get rid of loose nuclear material all over the world. the idea is stop the threat of nuclear terrorism, eliminate the possibility of a terrorist group stealing highly enriched uranium or plutonium or nuclear material in order to make a weapon. with this latest completion in the czech republic, the nsa says they will meet the president's goal of clearing out all the world's loose nuclear material by the end of the year, which is what he promised.

joining us now for a reality check how positive our nuclear feeling should be about this is our nation's most plainspoken expert on this stuff, counsel on foreign relations and a global commission aimed at eliminating nuclear weapons. thank you for being here. >> my pleasure, rachel. you know my reaction. you heard it with the woo hoo. ham i being naive with this news that the material is removed from the czech republic and we will get this four year plan done in four years. >> i don't know if we will get it in four years. but we're well on our way and the president deserves high marks for building the international operation. it requires three nations including the cooperation of russia. this is probably the area of the president's nuclear agenda he made the most progress. >> one of the godfathers of this idea the united states should take the lead and work with russia to lock up loose nukes

around the world is senator sam nunn. and he said what we have to do next is pear down nuclear weapons. too many missiles from the cold wear, and we shouldn't be modernizing them and pruning them back drastically. do you think president obama is going do that? >> i don't know. the president deserves and a plus for his vision, his drive, his commitment to this goal. but the whole enterprise frankly is on the verge of an embarrassing collapse. very little aside from the work you just cited has been done over the last two years to complete the rest of the aeg, reduce the role of nuclear weaponses out of the world and that's why you see sam nunn and dez brown and other diplomats saying now is the time.

you built the foundation, you have to erect the house. you have to get the other countries in the world involved and you have to motivate your own staff often is dragging their feet and shaking their heads about the president's agenda, get your own staff to get behind this and push this through over the next four years, this is your chance to fundamentally make the security of the united states and the world improved. >> when the president did get the senate to sign off on reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the last starke treaty, the thing he traded senate republicans in exchange for them signington that was tons and tons of money to modernize our nuclear weapons infrastructure. i wonder with the whole sequester nightmare and the way that played out over defense spending in particular if maybe republicans might soften up on that and decide they don't want to spend billions on that modernization process for something people think we will never use. did that change at all?

>> you see a split in the republican ranks between defense hawks pushing for more nuclear spending and more nuclear weapons and the defense hawks okay with the defense budget coming down and looking for savings. this is the critical time over this term of president obama, the next two to three years, we will make decisions on new contracts, whether we will replace the entire generation of missiles and bombers and submarines at a cost of at least half a trillion, about $500 billion to replace this. that's something many deficit hawks aren't going to want to be part of. but the president so far has not slowed down any of these contracts. he hasn't revamped the u.s. nuclear posture. he hasn't told the military what we need these nuclear weapons for. the next few months will be the telling moment whether the president's agenda succeeds or fails. >> joe, on this subject, broadly, the nuclear thing everybody is freaked-out about

right now is, of course, north korea threatening nuclear war and threatening war war on both south korea and on us and whoever else they can get in their sights. north korean bluster is hard to tell from north korean crazy. on the nuclear side of this specifically, do you feel like there's reason to worry? >> no. this is fundamentally not a nuclear threat from north korea, certainly not for the united states or europe. they don't have missiles that can reach us or warheads that can survive a launch from these missiles. it is fundamentally a conventional situation. you worry with tensions on the peninsula building, you might get an incident, a trigger that could result in exchange of fire and war that no one wants. >> joe cirincione. it is always reassuring and a little spooky to have you here because of the stuff we talk about. thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> iran, syria, north carolina

and rand paul walk into bar. how does this joke end? straight ahead. we're all

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since the bodies of the district attorney, mike mcclelland and his wife were discovered one week ago, one person of interest has surfaced in connection to those murders,

only one person in connection to this investigation, this man, a justice of peace and ex-police officers from texas described in news reports as essential lay disgruntled former employee. former justice of the peace, caught stealing public property. he lost his job because of that. he ended up getting prosecuted by one of the murdered county prosecutors. could this have been a disgruntled former public employee going back to get revenge. the day after the "l.a. times" identified him as a possible person of interest, he came forward to say he met with police and let them do a gunpowder swab of his hands and cooperating with law enforcement entirely and that it was not him. and that guy so far has been the only remotely cogent line of inquiry other than, of course,

the prison gangs, the white supremacist gangs prosecuted by the kaufman county office. that has had everybody wondering if the kaufman county prosecutor murders might be connected to another murder, the killing of another prominent law enforcement official, tom clements. the suspect in his killing was known to have a white supremacist prison gang affiliation of his own. and that suspect was driving through texas after the tom clements murder when he was killed in a shootout with police. so we've got three murders, we've got questions in all cases about white supremacist prison gangs. we still do not have any reason to know if the tom clements murder is connected to the kaufman county prosecutor's murders. authorities in colorado are looking for these two guys. they're looking for these two other men in connection to the murder of the colorado prison's

chief, tom clements. investigators have not said what role these two men might have played in the killing, if any, or why they are being sought. but believe these two men had contact with the suspect in the tom clements case before he was killed in texas. they say also those two guys are associated with the same racist prison gang, the 211s. in less than three months, three law enforcimment officials gunned down, two from the same small texas county. nobody knows if these three killings are linked. one suspect has been caught in the colorado case, but largely because he is dead. nobody knows why he did what he did or whether he worked with anybody else to do it. there are new details being ferreted out in these cases every day, though. watch this space. [ lane ] do you ever feel like you're growing old

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lizard people! lizard person, to be more accurate. the percentage of americans who believe lizard people control our societies by gaining political power is 4%. nice work, america. i mean, still, more than 1 million americans who believe it, but statistically speaking, this is one conspiracy theory too far for us as a nation. an overwhelming majority of americans do not believe that lizard people really control our society. few. we know that, thanks to a poll question from public policy polling. ppp does real polling. they correctly predicted the outcome in all 50 states in this past presidential election, for example. but from time to time, ppp does polls that really honestly have to be designed just to make good conversation at bars and parties. like when they settled the age-old question of whether wisconsinites like cheese better or beer better. it was overwhelmingly cheese. i would not have predicted that. this week, ppp released the findings of a poll of how much

americans believe in conspiracy theories. that's where we got our lizard people numbers from. we also learned the percentage of americans who believe that a secret power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through a new world order, that percentage is 28%. but of the responsibilities who self identified as very conservative, what was the percentage of very conservative americans who said they do believe that a secret power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authortarian government or new world order? it wasn't 28%, it was 45%. almost half of very conservative respondents fear the authortarian new world order. here is another one. do you believe global warming is a hoax. 51% overall say no. global warming is a real thing. but of the folks who voted for mitt romney in this last election, what percentage of those people believe that there's no such thing as global warming and it's all a big hoax? 61%.

nearly two-thirds of the people who voted for mitt romney say global warming is a hoax. did the bush administration mislead the country on weapons of mass destruction in iraq? definitely no. no, not if you're a republican. there was no misleading. three quarters of republicans polled say no, there was no misleading heading into iraq. if you ask democrats, the response is almost exactly the opposite. three quarters say yes. i mean, ray aye lot of americans of all stripes are susceptible to one theory or another, conspiracy theories and the like. but it seems like republicans and conservatives and people who voted for mitt romney are more susceptible than the rest of america to conspiracy theories, especially about people being out to get them. and looking at the way the elected republicans approach governing right now might be a clue as to why republicans are more susceptible to conspiracies than the rest of us. this is the international arms trade treaty, 13 pages long, the idea for countries that sell weapons to other countries to consider what those weapons might be used for in those other

countries. if those weapons are likely to be used for genocide, for example, then you shouldn't sell them. this week, the u.n. passed the arms trade treaty by an overwhelming margin, 154 countries voted for it. only three countries voted against it. the united states delegation voted for it. now the treaty goes to president obama who is reportedly expected to sign it. but then, of course, it goes to the united states senate, where it needs 67 votes in order to be ratified in order to count. the prospects for that are not good. because to republicans, this is not a treaty about not selling weapons to some other country that's going to use them for genocide. to republicans, this is a conspiracy to take your guns! just like everything else. tea party freshman senator ted cruz tweeting, u.n. arms treaty never be ratified. james inwho have, americans will not stand forrin stringing on their rights. joe manchin signed on to the principle stance.

2 democrats, 31 republicans. rand paul's reaction, quote, gun-grabbers around the globe believe they have it made. so please send me some money. late last month in a sort of trial run, the senate voted against the treaty. it was a mostly party line vote, a handful of red state democrats joining all of the republicans. and so even though the united states officially joined with 153 other countries in voting to pass this treaty, our country is almost certain to end up on the same side of the issue as the three nations that said no. the three nations that said no are iran, syria and north korea. and now because of the republicans and some conservative democrats, us too. iran, syria, north korea and the united states. conspiracy theories can be fun. they make the world seem exciting and like there is a secret special meaning to things that only you know about if you're smart enough to understand how things really work. conspi